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“Rachel Shein and Steve Pilarski, the married owners of the bakery, which employs 95 people, estimate this could cost their business up to $108,000, and they are weighing their options as the date approaches. ‘Our revenues are about $8 million, but the food business is a low-margin industry so cutting $108,000 out of our profits, which are just over $200,000, is a big deal,’ said Ms. Shein, who is the chief executive.”

“A new GOP bill would require health insurance companies to describe their tax burden under healthcare reform to consumers in annual statements. Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), a critic of the Affordable Care Act, said the measure would inform patients about the law’s “nearly trillion dollars in taxes” and how they might affect premiums. ‘If the federal government is going to play such a big role in our healthcare going forward, we have the right to know just how much it costs us,’ Walden said in a statement.”

“It turns out President Obama was right when he said his health care law wouldn’t add one dime to the federal deficit.1 Figures from the Government Accountability Office suggest that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will in fact add 62 trillion dimes over the next 75 years.”

“Some Americans could see their insurance bills double next year as the health care overhaul law expands coverage to millions of people. The nation’s big health insurers say they expect premiums – or the cost for insurance coverage – to rise from 20 to 100 percent for millions of people due to changes that will occur when key provisions of the Affordable Care Act roll out in January 2014.”

“The Joint Committee on Taxation recently released a 96 page report on the tax provisions associated with Affordable Care Act. The report describes the 21 tax increases included in Obamacare, totaling $1.058 trillion – a steep increase from initial assessment. The summer 2012 estimate is nearly twice the $569 billion estimate produced at the time of the passage of the law in March 2010.”

“Writing a new menu labeling law ‘has gotten extremely thorny,’ says the head of the Food and Drug Administration, as the agency tries to figure out who should be covered by it. The 2010 health care law charged the FDA with requiring chain restaurants and other establishments that serve food to put calorie counts on menus and in vending machines.”

“Applying for benefits under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul could be as daunting as doing your taxes.
The government’s draft application runs 15 pages for a three-person family. An outline of the online version has 21 steps, some with additional questions. Seven months before the Oct. 1 start of enrollment season for millions of uninsured Americans, the idea that getting health insurance could be as easy as shopping online at Amazon or Travelocity is starting to look like wishful thinking.”

“After 2018, the future of ObamaCare’s exchanges will be all downhill. At least that’s how it looks to the Congressional Budget Office. Its projections imply that the number of people getting subsidized coverage will ramp up from the 2014 start to peak at 22.3 million in 2018, but then fall by 1.8 million over the next five years.”

“The Obama team’s few remaining economic moderates – the ones who have a lot of experience in healthcare — all seem to be sitting out the details of Obamacare implementation and issuance of the law’s many regulations.”